Dead Sheep

Birmingham Rep

****

MARGARET Thatcher ruled Britain and the
Conservative party with an iron fist throughout the 1980s, one of the
most divisive and combative leaders of modern times.

The divisions were not just Labour against Tory,
Left against Right, her leadership had left her own party with deep
difference, a split between the more moderates, the so called wets, and
the more hardline Thatcherites as well as the Europhiles and
Eurosceptics.

Nothing new there then.

To some she was regarded as a minor deity, to
others she was the devil incarnate. There was no middle ground with
Thatcher. Even today, a generation on, she still engenders either hero
worship in those who prospered or hostility and anger in those who
suffered during her premiership.

So it was strange that
her downfall came not in some great clash of ideology, or battle against
the unions, or even as a result of the Tory party’s particular bête noire,
Europe, but from the last surviving member of her 1979 cabinet, a rather
dull resignation speech from her former Chancellor, Foreign Secretary
and deputy PM, Sir Geoffrey Howe.

He had, ostensibly, gone over her refusal to
commit to a timetable for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate
Mechanism against the advice of both the then chancellor Nigel Lawson
and the Bank of England. But, in truth, the relationship between the two
had been strained for years.

Howe was not a renowned orator, in truth, to
describe his speeches as dull would be a compliment. He was cruelly, but
perhaps accurately, described as Mogadon Man but
his 18-minute resignation speech on 13 November, 1990, quiet, cold,
unemotional and softly spoken, was all the more explosive because of
that.

He accused Thatcher of risking the future of the
country and compared her ministers entering talks in Europe to a game of
cricket. “It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease,
only for them to find, as the first balls are being bowled, that their
bats have been broken before the game by the team captain".

He called on ministers to look at themselves and
decide where their loyalties should really like. It was the catalyst,
the blue touch paper had been lit. Three weeks later, Thatcher was gone.

Playwright Jonathan Maitland does not go into the
wider politics of the time, the miners’ strike, privatisation, relaxed
financial controls and the like, instead concentrating on the
relationship between Howe and Thatcher, and Howe’s wife Elspeth, later
Lady Howe, a crossbench peer.

Elspeth with a social conscience and Thatcher with a monetarist agenda
did not get on.

Paul Bradley is superb
as Howe, quiet, uncharismatic, hardly combative, a little dithering, and
reluctant to stand up for himself, while Steve Nallon yes a man -
is brilliant as Margaret Thatcher. Mind you he has had plenty of
practice, becoming a founding member of Spitting Image
in 1984, where he was the voice of the Iron Lady, a character he has
played on and off ever since.

He has the voice, the mannerisms and facial
expressions of Thatcher off to a tee. We see her treatment of Howe as at
times appreciative, at times cruel and, in the death throes of their
relationship, as vindictive. One suspects Thatcher never expected the
worm to turn and to turn so effectively.

Clashing with her is Elspeth in a fine portrayal
by Carol Royle who gives Howe’s wife a feisty edge as she challenges
Thatcher on equality and homelessness.

Royle also gives Elspeth a sympathetic side
towards her husband, recognising his strengths and his weaknesses, and
the difficulties of challenging the PM – until that final fateful speech
when she encourages him to say what he feels rather than what is right
for the party.

Hovering around them we have a whole Westminster
village in the hands of Graham Seed, Christopher Villiers and John Wark

Seed provides Lawson, offstage Denis Thatcher and
most telling, Ian Gow, besotted by Thatcher and a close friend of Howe,
his old school chum from Winchester College. Gow acted as a go-between,
calming the waters between Thatcher and Howe and his assassination by
the IRA at the
end of July in 1990, also killed, perhaps, the last hope of peace
breaking out between the Prime Minister and her Deputy

Villiers gives us the bluff, blunt Thatcher Press
secretary Bernard Ingham, conduit to the Thatcher supporting Rupert
Murdoch and his empire, and the womanising Alan Clarke, these days seen
not so much as an upper class Jack the Lad as a Jack the Cad.

Wark was Howe’s private secretary Stephen Wall
and a delightful Brian Walden, or Bwian as he would say.

Paul Bradley's Geoffrey Howe delivers the quietly
devastating speech that was to bring down the Iron Lady

There is a wonderful scene as Howe and Nigel
Lawson try to grab a meeting with Thatcher via telephone calls involving
them, Wall and a Thatcher aide. Four phones, 16 conversations and the
timing is impeccable.

The trio also give us assorted ministers and MPs
including Bill Cash and Neil Kinnock.

A simple set from Morgan Large, emphasised by
David Howe’s lighting, is effective and helps director Ian Talbot
maintain a good pace which is a necessity in any comedy.

There are plenty of contemporary references to
give a current flavour, for instance, Thatcher apparently did not like
men with beards, so declares even the Socialists would not elect a
leader with a beard, or in a discussion on Europe when it is stated the
people would rather have nothing to do with Europe, Howe states the
people are not always right – to loud applause. It appears to have been
Remainers night at the Rep.

At times it is very funny, with enough references
to dates to give some idea of where we are on the timeline, and by
keeping to a very narrow agenda, ignoring the political and social
turmoil beyond Westminster, it becomes an intriguing journey through the
relationship between Thatcher and her longest serving minister.

Labour’s Denis Healey had once famously said that
an attack by Howe was like “being savaged by a dead sheep.” After the
resignation speech the pair later crossed in the voting lobby and Healey
smiled and said to Howe: “Geoffrey, I didn’t know you had it in you!”,
Howe smiled back and quietly moved on. The dead sheep had become a live
wolf and cemented a place in history. To 01-10-16.

Roger Clarke

26-09-16

Incidentally,
Denis Healey and Geoffrey Howe were friends for many years and died six
days apart in October last year, Healey was 98 and Howe 88.